What is Psychology?
Psychology is the science of the mind and behaviour. The word "psychology" comes from
the Greek word psyche meaning "breath, spirit, soul", and the Greek word logia meaning
the study of something. In the old ages the sum of this whole word was known as 'study
of soul'. For the sake of better understanding of what does mean by psychology few of
the definitions by various researchers have been given below:
Psychology is the scientific study of people, the mind and behaviour. It is both a thriving
academic discipline and a vital professional practice. (The British Psychological Society)
The scientific study of the behavior of individuals and their mental processes. (American
Psychological Association)
Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental
processes and behavior. (Wikipedia)
The constant theme across these definitions is that psychology is fundamentally
concerned with understanding Behavior (colclusion).
However, according to the modern psychologists the simplicity of the definition that
attribute psychology with behaviour is somewhat deceiving and conceals the broad
scope of subject. Most of the psychologists are of the view the definition of psychology
should not be confined to the study of behaviour in its simple way. Rather, they argue
that the field should be receptive to a variety of viewpoints and approaches.
Consequently, the phrase behaviour and metal processes in the defintion of psychology
must be understood to mean many things: It encompasses not just what people do but
also their perceptions, emotions, thoughts, reasoning processes, memories and even the
biological processes maintaining body functions.
Psychologists explore concepts such as perception, cognition, attention, emotion,
phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, personality, behavior, and interpersonal
relationships. Psychologists of diverse stripes also consider the unconscious mind as well
as help to change and improve the lives of people and the world in which they live. They
use scientific methods to answers that are far more valid and legitimate than those
resulting from speculation.
school of thoughts of psychology..
The phrase 'school of thought' means for a particular idea or set of ideas held by a
specific group; doctrine. Any idea that a group strongly believes in, be it through
practising this idea in their everyday life or through fighting for its adoption, can be
considered a school of thought. There are several school of thoughts for the purpose of
studying psychology. Each of them views this subject from different perspective and
makes its own effort to define a particular phenomenon related to human behaviour.
Sometimes it appears that each of them has its unique position and importance, for no
single school of thought is able to define controversies and complexities concerned with
defining human behaviour. The combination of two, or sometime, more work
appropriately. An attempt of defining different school of thoughts have been made
below:
The early school of thoughts.
Structuralism
Structuralism was the first school of psychology, and focused on breaking down mental
processes into the most basic components. Major structuralist thinkers include Wilhelm
Wundt and Edward Titchener. The focus of structuralism was on reducing mental
processes down into their most basic elements. Structuralists used techniques such as
introspection to analyze the inner processes of the human mind.
Functionalism
The perspective that replaced structualism is known as functionalism. Rather than
